Bound by Convention
by aeternamente13
Summary: (Lizzie Bennet Diaries) At the Gibson wedding, Darcy is confronted by a distasteful garment and an unwanted social interaction.


**Bound by Convention**

_I really don't understand this garter ritual_, Darcy thought as he observed the frilly ring of lace and elastic that now dangled from the tentative grip of his fingers. This garment had, for the past several hours, been worn around the upper thigh of a bride he had never properly met, was then removed by a groom with whom he had only a passing acquaintance, who threw it to be caught by any one of the men attending the wedding. And by some cruel twist of fate, the man who had caught this disturbingly intimate item was Darcy himself.

The wedding guests applauded politely. Darcy supposed most men would do some sort of celebratory wave of the caught garment, but he could not bring himself to do anything of the sort. He spotted Bing across the room, who laughed and whispered something to the redheaded girl he'd been glued to all evening. Darcy rolled his eyes.

He found himself herded onto the dance floor by the groom, who kept grinning and patting Darcy on the back, as if he'd done something praiseworthy, and soon he found himself facing a woman who was probably four or five years younger than himself with sleek auburn hair wearing an olive green dress. It was only a small consolation that she seemed about as thrilled at the situation as he was. She passed her caught bouquet to the bride for safekeeping, though the groom made no move to relieve Darcy of his newly-acquired garter. Reluctantly, he stuffed it in his pocket.

The bride and groom ceremonially joined Darcy's hand with the hand of this bouquet-catching stranger. He was horrified to find that his palm was sweating profusely, and the grimace on his dance partner's face told him that she had indeed noticed this. Taking a deep breath as if preparing to plunge underwater, Darcy gingerly placed his other hand on her waist, and she accordingly (and just as hesitantly) rested her hand on his shoulder, and the music began.

It was, predictably, a slow song that he did not recognize. It was in triple meter, and Darcy did know how to waltz, but he didn't want to assume that his partner knew, and figured that even if she did, it was probably not the accepted kind of movement for this type of song, so he settled on swaying nebulously back and forth as the recording of a woman with a wispy voice crooned on about love at first sight.

His dance partner's dress was rather low-cut, and due to their significant height differential (she was a full head shorter than he was), Darcy could not look at her face without… _something else_ being directly in his line of vision. So Darcy looked directly ahead. His eyes found Caroline, who smirked at him in a way that indicated that he would be teased about this later. He arranged his face into his best unimpressed glare, which made her giggle.

The song seemed to be coming to a middle. There had been two verses and two choruses, and a transitional guitar riff was now leading the wispy-voiced singer to the bridge. Darcy thought he might be able to survive this ordeal if only the woman he was dancing with had the good sense not to make any attempts at conversation.

"So…" his companion began as if on cue, "are you liking it here in town?"

_Look at her face_, Darcy warned himself as he lowered his gaze, _her face and only her face_. "Not especially," he deadpanned, hoping his curt reply would end the conversation. (And to be fair, he _was_ telling the truth.)

But she soldiered on. "Do you enjoy dancing?"

"Not if I can help it," he replied. This one was a bit of a lie, though. When he was at home, he regularly attended ballroom dancing lessons with Gigi. She had trouble finding partners tall enough for her (extreme lankiness being a Darcy family trait) so she had dragged him along at some point a few years back, and to his surprise, Darcy had found that he liked it. But this… this was not dancing, and he did not enjoy it.

His dance partner seemed to have gotten the hint, at any rate, as she made no further attempts to speak. The song was mercifully reaching its final cadential strains and the two of them dropped their arms and took a few steps back. Darcy realized he wasn't quite sure what he should say at this moment. _I enjoyed dancing with you...?_ No, he didn't. _Pleased to make your acquaintance...?_ Not particularly. He finally settled on, "Thank you."

She frowned. "You're… welcome?" she answered uncertainly, confirming his fear that he had said the wrong thing. She turned and walked away, leaving Darcy alone to feel the full impact of his social ineptitude. After a moment, he set off to find the nearest garbage can, and having found it, he extracted the garter from his pocket, and deposited it there, where it belonged.

_A/N: I'd like to make it known that I fully share Darcy's opinion about the garter toss. I think it's one of the more idiotic traditions I've ever heard of. Also, I don't know if there is a slow-dance song out there in triple meter about love at first sight. I just used it because I thought it was funny to have Darcy consider dancing a waltz, and because Charlotte made that comment about love at first sight in ep. 61 and I figured she might be making a reference to the actual song that was playing. I also shamelessly stole the phrase "coming to a middle" from Firefly._


End file.
